Ex Oriente Lux et Veritas
The essays in this book place Salisbury in the context of 19th-century Orientalism, with particular attention to the interconnected growth of Assyriology in Northern Europe and the U.S. Hitherto unheralded, Salisbury emerges as a founding figure in the development of ancient Near Eastern, Arabic, and Sanskrit studies, as well as in the rise of the American liberal arts university.
Edward Elbridge Salisbury (1814-1901) graduated from Yale University in 1832 and was appointed Professor of Arabic and Sanskrit there in 1841. His remained the only University Chair of Sanskrit in America till 1854, when a separate ‘Professorship of Sanskrit and kindred languages’ was created, also at Yale. Salisbury also served as the President of the American Oriental Society, and was elected as a member of the Asiatic Society of Paris, Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences and a corresponding member of the German Oriental Society.
This book presents expanded versions of the papers delivered at a symposium held during the 175th anniversary celebration of Yale's 1841 appointment of Edward Elbridge Salisbury as America's first Professor of Arabic and Sanskrit.
Karen Polinger Foster is Lecturer of Near Eastern Language and Civilizations, and History of Art at Yale